Kid's Birthday Party: Unique Networking Opportunity?!

August 19, 2012

Only four classmates. That's how few guests my daughter invited for her birtday party. No matter how much I tried to get her to invite more guests. I'ld like to think of birthday parties as Unique Networking Opportunities. A chance to create new diplomatic bonds, enter in coalitions, and make sure there'll be lots of invites for yóu. To sum up: a way to rise up on the ladder of popularity.

I'm not even sure why I think that, because experience has taught me sending out lots of invitations, does nót equal receiving lots of invitations. To tell you the truth, I'm not a party girl myself. I hate big birthday bashes, and prefer a quiet one on one. And I wasn't one of the popular girls myself in high school either. In fact I spent highschool in the twilighzone of invisibility. Once I was even forgotten at my own birthday party…

So perhaps I should take a page out of my daughter's book, and follow my heart! For my next birthday I won't be inviting guests and I won't plan a big party. I'll just have a nice cup of coffee with my husband and children gathered around me. And then later in the week I'll have coffee with some mommy friends.

I'll have my cake, and eat it too!

How do you like to celebrate your birthday? Are you the big bash kind of girl, or do you prefer to keep it small?

16 comments

I'm currently celebrating my birthday week! I say birthday week because I like to drag it out for a few reasons and one of those is definitely so I can catch up with everyone in small groups.

I never liked big parties and most of my friends/family don't know each other ( as in the fam doesn't know the friends, clearly Mum and Dad are well acquainted). This weekend I did a birthday dinner with my parents, later in the week I'm having a pizza night with my dance girls and cake and mocktails with another small group. Big parties just stress me out, I hated the last one I had so I'd rather small gatherings. I think your daughter is definitely onto something!

I have always had many friends as Im a very social person. I do love face to face or small meetings over glass of wine as well, but somehow in my circle Im always the one who take responsibilities for organization of parties, holidays, events and dinners. But I have a golden rule of not going crazy neither for my birthday neither for New Years Eve, with small exception for round birthday like 25th, 30th etc etc Even though my rule, my friends will always organize sth in secret and show up somewhere out of the blue in amount of 40 or 50 on my birthday evening :) Im glad I have them!

I love to keep things small, so do my children and my husband. I don't like big bashes with people who feel socially obligated to come instead of coming out of love. We did that with out wedding too...less than ten people, people we knew wanted to be there becuase they really loved us, not people looking for a free meal, free cake and free entertainment. I think most modern people have lost the beauty of simplicity...but not our family! :)

I'm a "keeping it small" type of gal. When you have too many guests, you never get to really connect with them during the event. But for a kid's party, I want as many kids as possible. I guess that makes for a more fun party. And yes, that means more presents :)

I am a hybrid - I like to keep it small, except when I don't. I think I like to sit and watch at bigger events, which is hard to do at one's own birthday, so for those, I try to keep it small (the occasional big family birthday bash is different - this year at Samantha's one year birthday, my husband did the introductions: "Mom and Dad, this is Claire's family. Claire's family, this is my mom and dad", and I only had about 13 of my relatives there, really a small turnout for my family. But my birthday this year was a chocolate cake, and I was happy with it. I have a feeling Samantha is going to like the big parties - she loves being the center of attention, and is a very social one year old. I can tell you she did not get it from her father or me...

I go all out with the decorations and food. But then I like to keep the guest list small. That way I have plenty of time to interact with everyone and not be stressed out or running all over the place.

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Welcome to my humble abode on the internet! Here's where I talk about anything under the sun. You'll find info about parenting, housekeeping, product reviews, marriage stuff, cartoons and the joy of having a cup of coffee!